Thanks for writing that reply Mozart. I feel compelled to respond as one of the unmemorable white guys. Since discovering the pirate movement last election, I have had little time to devote due to full-time work and caring for sick and ageing parents, content to be drawn along in the slipstream that others created. With both my parents now gone, I thought I might redirect that energy by putting myself way out of my comfort zone, stepping forward as a candidate to support ideas that mean something to me. Itâs true that diversity of views and engagement need effort, and this is true in most volunteer run organisations. I agree 100% with the assertion that your voice will always be heard if you get involved, at whatever level you feel as appropriate.
"All our candidates are a male whitewash, yes, HOWEVER that is purely
coincidential, because they are the only people who put their hand up. "
Hello! Iâm a new member of the PPAU and this is my first forum post.
I feel compelled to point out that, while women may not have put themselves forward to vote, that does not mean that it is âpurely coincidentalâ that no women are running. Surely it is an indicator that a range of other systemic factors have aligned to result in an end outcome where no woman has put themselves forward. As a new member, I canât say with certainty what these factors would be. Iâm sure it was not a deliberate strategy. But, at the very least, it should be taken as a loud and alarming sign that the partyâs relationship to women and questions of gender needs to be addressed. (I believe @datakid23 brought this up recently in his thread about diversity.)
Half of the population being absent from the list of candidates cannot possibly be explained as âcoincidenceâ!
Hello. Welcome. Enjoy! (being sincere)
Weâre all ears on this. I am sticking with how I see things because I havenât been shown anything else otherwise, but if thereâs something more to it that you suggest does not make it âpurely coincidentalâ as Iâve put it, then evidently the issue(s) have perhaps not come to light very well if at all.
We WANT women to stand, but it doesnât help us when people challenge us on a subject without giving the feedback we need. It just becomes a war of words of differing opinion. Thereâs too much âwhatâ answers going around. We need to be given the âwhyâ answers too. Without knowing the âwhyâ, we wonât know âwhatâ to fix.
Sorry if this comes across as brash, as itâs not intended.
âThings only appear random if their deterministic processes have not been uncovered.â
Consider:
We are operating in a party system which is to a large part a legacy from a patriarchic history of politics, which by default promotes stereotypically male behaviours such as high self confidence and self promotion, while more âfeminineâ roles of listening and taking something away for deeper consideration, are disadvantaged.
Our policy platform would look different had a more diverse group been involved in the process, or been reached out to during the process.
We are facing issues that are consequences of structural realities which, if not fixed intentionally, will not get better by themselves, only excesserbate as the party grows and (aims to) gain(s) more power in a fraught system.
We need to work on our diversity and we should do that through improved participatory systems and until then, actively asking a diversity of people outside the party for input and feedback on issues relating to them.
Why did I not stand for candidacy?
I think there are number of factors.
Setting aside the fact that I intend to move overseas next year, I think it cannot be ignored that people who are not white male middle class able bodied cisgender etc. face a number of structural disadvantages in our society which probably played into my and othersâ decision not to put our hats in the ring. If you want to know what those structural disadvantages are, please do your research.
Me for myself, I donât see myself as comfortable in the spotlight, and the added sexism women in the spotlight of politics face is not particularly appealing. Perhaps if a more active effort was made to make sure those who run for candidacy feel supported by their party with regards to such issues, a more diverse group would put their hand up? This is a question of cohesion as much as anything.
OK Iâm done rambling. Itâs late. I hope this helps.
Thanks for the âfuck offâ, it makes it clear the opportunity for discussion without harassment does not exist here.
Thatâs a rather absolute statement. I hope you donât really believe that. 
Iâd also like to add in regard to the Pirate Party straying from itâs roots, that the Policy Development Committee looks set to propose for adoption what is probably the most ambitious copyright reform policy of any past or present political party in Australia, and perhaps beyond.
This came to an entirely predictable result.
I honestly read the whole thread but my personal interest in pitching ideas and reasons to stay stopped about here:
As an completely unmemorable white male IT professional my interest in you and your problems faded away when you explained that I was unfortunately a nameless faceless mass of stereotyped forgettable sub human caricatures that you stand in for where actual living breathing human beings with hopes dreams vulnerabilities and ambitions might have stood if you had the inclination to get to know people rather than dismiss them based on their gender and complexion.
At this point having shifted from interested to defensive (the normal emotional response when you sense someone disparaging you or identity groups you associate with) I could only see reasons to say goodbye rather than convince you to stay.
This is evidently a late entry but as food for thought when discussing with a faceless mass of white male IT types how they can better accommodate your perspective in their platform. It helps a lot if you avoid statements that are disparaging and suggest contempt. When you dehumanize a group they are less likely to view anything else you have to say with an open mind, as a member of marginalized social identities you might have experienced this phenomenon yourself whenever one of our nations conservative parties gets air time.
Evidently I wasnât the only one a fair number of responses centered around how you have to put more in if you expect the collective to better represent you and that is a polite shift of onus back to you despite you having mentioned the various reasons you are unable to commit to heaver participation.
While Brendan was the only one prepared to be blunt in their points the rest of the explanations were more nuanced variations of the theme
That is harsh but not unfair, you are apparently hoping for accommodations from others but havenât set any terms for quid quo pro exchange or even made a particularly engaging pitch as to why a mass of forgettable white IT drones should be going out of their way to do more for you. You have from the initial contact disparaged the people you are apparently hoping will not just accept you as one of their flock but go out of their own sphere of self interest and advocate on your behalf, evidently the appeal wasnât conducive to a positive outcome as it seems to have sparked no kick off in altruistic interest. Instead it became a heated debate that sealed an outcome that looks at this point like it was inevitable.
Especially when it became very clear that you hold views that are rather irreconcilable with the Pirate party
There is a problem that you see no distinction between freedom of expression and hate speech, it makes it neigh impossible to explain the value of the concept since you continually cite examples of hate speech as failures of free speech.
You donât appear to be any more interested in understanding opposing viewpoints than anyone else in the forum and are looking to air grievances rather than understand the platform and why it values a concept you consider to be inextricably linked to white terrorism (a term that itself could do with some dissection), your mind is as closed to understanding as anyone else in the discussion.
Thing is that the promotion of Free speech and as it more formally defined freedom of expression is a core tenet of the great works of the Swedish Pirates.
1.1 Peopleâs ability to communicate freely with each other strengthens freedom, participation and democracy.
This isnât a divergence from what Pirate party was its been a part of the ideals for as long as the Pirate party has existed.
In all honesty the Greens may better serve your interests, they avoid the term free speech in their policies (as far as I could find) and they focus heavily on increasing participation and representation of womenâs and minority voices which covers your concerns about diversity issues.
They sit closer to what would be described as the authoritarian left or what is so often disparaged as the nanny state.
They believe government has a role in every function of your life and should police all thought and behavior and this extends to their views on strengthening harassment protections even at the expense of a general freedom of expression.
The cynic in me worries about investing that much power in people who seem to consider themselves to be moral paragons above reproach and whom apparently learned nothing from the communist revolutions about the limits of how much you can dictate to a society how to behave even if its in their own interests.
Best of luck with whichever party you decide to follow.
Surely you could ask Melanie Thomas or Michelle Allen it they felt supported when they were candidates for the party.
I know you contribute what you can, and Iâve seen the good work youâve done on the policy development committee, particularly around the LGBT policy to be voted on at the upcoming congress.
I want people to know that you are involved in helping improve our diversity in the party, because the rest of what you said sounded a bit like âfind reasons not to be the change you want to seeâ, and Iâm pretty sure thatâs not what you think.
Thanks David,
Im describing real or perceived obstacles people might have in putting themselves in the spotlight. I did this in response to questions of Why we have these diversity issues and other peopleâs observations of the demographic of our candidates. I did this because if we want to solve a problem we need to understand how it arises before finding solutions. I understand this can be a bit daunting.
I now want to differentiate between what you call âfind reasons not to be the change you want to seeâ and reasons some people donât jump at the opportunity of being in the spotlight with what they do to be the change they want to see, reasons I donât look for but which find me.
Hi Laura,
Do you have any suggestions? I think there are many people who are listening and willing to act if they have a way forward. As a volunteer organisation, I think we canât really pick who comes and helps, which is very different from organisations with paid positions.
From my perspective, I havenât seen many women or minorities in the party, but I also havenât seen the ones who do decide to join and contribute stalled in any way. This is why we had Mel Thomas do such a great job in Brisbane, and I trust Michelle and her hard work in WA. In my time as an active contributor, I think that many of the women who were members were also fairly prominent in the party. I myself am a minority but was able to contribute fairly easily.
More broadly, Birgitta Jonsdottir is basically the public face of the movement globally, and Asta Helgadottir is a very prominent thinker.
That said, if there are women and minorities who are having problems or suggestions then I would encourage them to speak out. I have no doubt that the vast majority of the party would be in support.
Hi Sunny,
I wholeheartedly agree that members of minority groups donât seem to be stalled by the party, Iâm certainly not complaining, which is why I referred to the need to recognise broader societal structural disadvantages in an earlier post, as well as the need to observe closely the influence of the traditional organisational structures. Having a minority persona in a position of power doesnât change most of the detrimental effects of such structures, imo (thinking eg of Angela Merkel and Hilary Clinton). Even as some people like you and me volunteer without major hindrances from the party, others might be put off from doing that for a variety of reasons. If we want those people to participate more, we should ask them whatâs stopping them. And to listen when people volunteer reasons, like the creator of this threat who mentioned not being able to cope for too long with heated discussions of âangry menâ.
Participatory democracy is one of our core tenets listed on the website, and I think this is for good reason. In my mental picture of it, a participatory system would facilitate much less conflict ridden discourse but instead promote much more collaborative discussions in which a large diversity of perspectives can be considered, eliminating tendencies of authoritarianism and discrimination. Itâs a work in progress, but Iâd hate to see it stall.
Note I am drawing a lot of these ideas from a colleague in Germany, whoâs blogposts ( janonymous-and-the-rabbit-hole.net ) I have read. Topics include improved liquid feedback, functional fascism and divide and conquer mechanisms.
Thanks.
Isnât there a real issue that politics is not very inclusive in general of all kinds of personalities? So for certain personalities that do not deal well with adversarial style discourse (e.g. âshyâ), they would feel disconnected and unable to participate even if the door is left open for them to. Which is sorta like how a lot of Australians feel like in terms of participating in party politics, where it seems like only people with the certain kind of âpersonalityâ would bother becoming a politician (thus could possibly be acting as a filter to select the wrong kind of people?)⌠after all there is a saying that people in power shouldnât be in power.
Which is why some people discourse in here is not exactly helping, and was only going to just accelerate @bluebie resignation.
Trying to reform and create a culture and platform that is a more participatory and inclusive democracy is one of the major goals of the Pirate Party ethos if I recall correct? We are getting there, but at the same time it is very easy to fall into the trap that is the political norm of Australia.
This could be via experimenting with various ways of moderated discourse. From the traditional sling fest, to the more careful and deliberate discussion panels, there are probably various ways that would allow people with say âshy personalitiesâ to be able to partake.
I couldnât agree more with your assessment.
I resigned some months back. Interestingly though Jenna and I seem to have different perspectives of where the party is heading. For me there seemed to be a drift to the left with a hint of green anti-science flavour.
Part of me wanted to get more involved and start some real life activities to raise the partyâs profile and make it more social (fortnightly debates at a pub for example). But I realised I left things too late and should have become involved in the first couple of years. And reading over some of the discussions it just felt like a different direction to the one I thought the party was originally on.
In what sense, anti-science?
Anti GMO/Monsanto discussions.
Weâre not anti-GMO. Not sure what youâre referring to.
It was a while back. Iâll see if I can find the references tomorrow.
It would be good to see a policy around GMO technology then.